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Classic Rock: Evolve or Die!

And, in the last couple of weeks, I discovered the "other" board some time ago had enough of this certain individual and banned him.
 
And, line one of YOUR terms of service states: Remember: there is no need to get dirty or insulting on a personal level no matter how much you may dislike each other, and no matter how "wrong" the other person is.

This individual clearly has gotten dirty and insulting on an hourly basis.
 
So, you choose to keep a blunt, NICE guy (your description) who continuously calls respected industry professionals liars and suits rather than terminate the situation so those respected industry professionals stay or return?

The "situation" is being reviewed and will be handled.

The fact remains that "radio professionals" have the IGNORE button in their profiles just as "radio fans" do. You are BOTH at fault for not exercising it. If you were at a radio conference and saw someone you have never gotten along with.. do you approach them, interject into a conversation they are having with someone else (possibly a friend of yours) and start arguing? Or do you stay on the other side of the room, even find a different room to chat with people you like and get along with? REALLY. It is THAT simple.

I'm amazed that "suits" has become offensive... it's like they may as well be using a derogatory word that starts with "n". "Suits" is easier to type than "powers that be", "decision makers", "programmers", "bean counters"... no matter how "you" are described, "you" don't like how you are described. But ... there has to be a way to describe "you". Right now, I'd say "suits" really is not a bad word to use. The people making the decisions need to be accountable for those decisions (good AND bad). It does not have to be taken as derogatory, even if it is intended to be. You choose what offends you. And if you choose to be offended, you will have drama. My advice: choose to let it go. There are bigger problems in the world than allowing words to hurt you. (Remember "sticks and stones"? Yeah, I'm an adult and I still repeat that saying. You should try it. It's empowering. Yes, really.)

Dissatisfied "radio listeners" will be calling "radio pros" names regardless if it is here or elsewhere. You have to either have thick skin if you are going to listen to it and let it go, or learn how to ignore people who say things you don't like to hear. (We have an IGNORE option)

But, if you can't hear them say those things, do you feel more empowered? You can't please everybody (this I know from personal experience RIGHT HERE)... so please who you can while you can and STOP WORRYING about those who aren't pleased.. unless you are acting as customer retention and want to go above and beyond to save the sale.

Here, there are those in the radio pros camp who are "customers" and there are those in the radio fans camp who are "customers". Both sides are welcome here. There are many personality types. If you can't get along with one, PUT THEM ON IGNORE.
 
I think the word "liar" is a bad word to use. Fortunately, it hasn't been used towards me. But if it had, I'd be pretty offended.

But as you know, when expletives were directed at me by this poster, I was offended. And I'm not ashamed about that.
 
That ignores the fact that this particular poster has argued at length with YOU about your TOS, about your definitions, about the way you run the board. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that.

The greater issue is that this poster changes the tone of every conversation he engages in.

It is not enough to put him on ignore. His unveiled invective, use of terms like "suits" and consistent turning of threads to his focus rather than anything useful has contaminated the entire board, right down to the comments on board administration.

A good case in point is the recent claim by that poster that advertising agencies have somehow schemed to convince billion-dollar companies to accept what he believes to be a corrupt or deficient ratings system. This statement, besides being bogus in so many ways, uses a false assumption to prove another false assumption.

Once the waters of any thread have been contaminated by this type of thinking, the entire thread goes downhill. We no longer exchange ideas and we are not exposed to useful differing opinions and viewpoints. Instead, we suffer a continual barrage of total negativity. Most former posters who have written to me have said, in my paraphrase, "we end up trying to duck his bullets and are, eventually, instilled with a fear of saying anything".

This is how one evil individual can destroy the power, the usefulness and the camaraderie that should be the vital components of a board like this.
 
I think the word "liar" is a bad word to use. Fortunately, it hasn't been used towards me. But if it had, I'd be pretty offended.

But as you know, when expletives were directed at me by this poster, I was offended. And I'm not ashamed about that.

If you have it easily accessible, please give me a direct link where Avid called someone a liar directly. I've seen generalizations.. but not towards anyone specifically. So if you can provide that, it will be helpful.
 
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”


― Adolf Hitler Someone has to stand up to people giving out faulty information WHEN it casts aspersions on an entire industry. This is not a matter of being offended or ignoring the problem and it will go away! I am not calling this poster a liar, merely misinformed.
 
I would like to add something, if I may.

If, in the heat of this convoluted discussion, I said anything that anyone found personally offensive, I apologize for same and hope that any offended party will understand how emotions may have affected my choice of words.
 
ADMIN: Thank you for your attention to this matter.
 
Years ago on another website, David Eduardo and I had an extremely heated exchange over the failed CBS-FM change to Jack FM. By our General Manager's logic, I should have simply put him on ignore. Thankfully, I didn't. We talked it out and while we didn't reach total agreement, we were able to arrive at a common ground. From that, I was able to begin to find a growing respect for Mr. Eduardo. It is that respect that brings me to this website daily. I click on radiodiscussions.com because he does. I deliberately seek out the topics where he participates because I want to read what he has to say. I learn and grow daily by his contributions.

In any useful, living, growing discussion group, you have to be willing to listen to, not just ignore, opposing viewpoints. To suggest we simply click ignore gets us no where. And to fully ignore the comments of one participant means you must also be willing to ignore any and all who might respond to that participant -- almost an impossibility and something that I'm not willing to do. That is unless you choose to eliminate the "reply with quote" option. But even then, the context of the discussion will be lost. The contribution will become meaningless.

To click ignore means we no longer have that exchange of iron sharpening iron. To click ignore means we segregate into like minded groups. Pros over here. Fans over there. And don't we have enough partisan division already? Do you really want to suggest, to encourage the idea that we have even more at radiodiscussions. Perhaps suggesting we click ignore will make things easier for management, but I suspect it will also mean that this site will become like the other radio board. A place where we post our old TV Guide lists and fondly look back on when top 40 AM was king. In other words, a place where we peacefully go to die.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that this should be radio's online battle ground. Anything but that. I mention the story about Mr. Eduardo and I to lead into a point. When he and I "discussed" CBS-FM / Jack, it came from a viewpoint that neither of us were all-knowing about the intimate details of why the change was made and why that change failed. We were willing to listen to each other. We came into the conversation with enough respect for each other that, while we disagreed, we could communicate without resorting to attempts to marginalize or degrade through ad-hominum attacks. This is something that many of us see Avid Listener as unable or unwilling to do.

From post one, Mr. Listener has made clear that he doesn't care what the professionals on this site, or previously on radioinsight.com, might think. For reasons known only to him, Mr. Listener chose to participate here, despite carrying what (at least to me) appears to be a grudge against an industry that many of us take great pride in being a part of. Mr. Eduardo has written quite eloquently about Listener's tone and the results of that tone in most any discussion where he participates. I struggle to understand why anyone who holds our industry in such distain has any interest in coming here. He appears to bring little more than an anger that poisons. It makes no rational sense.

Through the years, I've experience flamewars on this site and elsewhere. Sometimes a moderator has to use the nuclear option, to say enough. More often, I'd say that eventually the parties involved find a middle ground. They don't come to total agreement. They do, more times than not, find some respect for each other. Again, Mr. Eduardo and myself are a good example. That doesn't happen, and never will happen by using the kill switch called "ignore." But there's a strong difference between those examples and the ongoing question of what to do with Avid Listener.

You have to be willing to find that common ground. You have to be willing to offer and to earn respect. I'm sorry but I don't see that willingness in Avid Listener. He appears convinced that his viewpoint is the only correct viewpoint. I truly would love to know just why Mr. Listener is so angry. I feel like someone, somewhere needs to reach out and offer help. I'll be the first to admit, I've failed in being that person. Again, I just don't know why he chooses to express that anger on this site. Why does he appear to make a deliberate effort to foul anything and everything he comes in contact with?

But there comes a time when someone has to say enough. David Eduardo and others have become growingly frustrated with Mr. Listener's writing. It wasn't always that way. Listener has ignored those who have attempted to confront his attitude person to person. Those same persons have attempted to bring the issue to management for resolution. Again, nothing has changed. Listener continues to hold professionals and the radio industry in contempt, and daily makes that clear by what he writes. There comes a time when someone in management has to press the "launch" button. I trust the right call will be made.
 
...it came from a viewpoint that neither of us were all-knowing about the intimate details of why the change was made and why that change failed. We were willing to listen to each other. We came into the conversation with enough respect for each other that, while we disagreed, we could communicate without resorting to attempts to marginalize or degrade through ad-hominem attacks.

Thank you for taking this perspective, Mr. Guitar.

When a discussion becomes "shoot and duck" rather than and exchange, it generally goes nowhere.

In my comments to Boz, I mentioned that my enjoyment of these boards comes from being challenged to find facts and to substantiate arguments or counterpoints.

I have learned a great deal from having to check, verify and research some of my responses. My website was created out of my feeling that much of our industry's history was being lost or becoming ever harder to discover and that impression came from my participation here.

Your entire post should be preserved (not necessarily because I am directly mentioned) as a form of guidance that goes beyond the board rules. Thank you for writing a well thought out piece that very much ends the current malady on a high note.
 
Just noticed the suspension. To Boz, thank you.

CSG, those are vary valid points about the ignore feature. Obviously if most people used that option, what would be the point of the forums at all.. I agree.

Sometimes personalities just won't get along. I think if you treat the forums like you do an in-person convention and be nice to everyone and avoid those you dislike if necessary, you will have a more enjoyable time.
 
Not really. If a person likes what we do and participates, then he's a customer. If he's made a decision that what we do is crap, then he's ceased to be a customer.

I disagree.... YOUR customers are the advertisers and your PRODUCT is the listeners (hopefully in large enough numbers to generate good/high rates to sell).
 
YOUR customers are the advertisers and your PRODUCT is the listeners (hopefully in large enough numbers to generate good/high rates to sell).

Purely from a legal perspective, that's true. The "customer payment" isn't coming from the listeners, and the advertisers pay based on the station delivering the audience as if they were commodities.

I doubt, though, that most listeners have your excellent perception in understanding that, and for most of them the music is the product that they come to the stations as customers for.

Big A is answering from that more common perspective.
 
Purely from a legal perspective, that's true. The "customer payment" isn't coming from the listeners, and the advertisers pay based on the station delivering the audience as if they were commodities.

I doubt, though, that most listeners have your excellent perception in understanding that, and for most of them the music is the product that they come to the stations as customers for.

Big A is answering from that more common perspective.

In a classic bimodal marketing model, the user is not the consumer. An example of this is life insurance, where something is bought for the benefit of others.

In that context, radio is somewhat similar, as the users are not the consumer in the sense that the user pays nothing, while the advertiser does.

All this means is that there are many ways to look at this theoretically. And there are various labels we can put on the listener and the advertiser. The key element is still the fact that without those two types of support, radio stations can't remain in operation.
 
In a way it is like how stations operate. Programming and on air delivers the ears and the sales department markets those ears to potential buyers. In great radio stations both departments, sales and programming respect each other and neither has the upper hand. Sales has nothing to sell without programming and programming can't happen without sales to fund it.
 
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